Missouri Republicans taking needed steps to lift veil of government secrecy
Amid new revelations about the extreme measures that Eric Greitens has undertaken to govern in the dark, a Republican lawmaker has introduced a bill that would address the cloak of secrecy surrounding the Missouri governor’s office and would help bring state open records laws into the 21st century.
That’s encouraging because Missouri sorely needs a sensible, bipartisan approach to improving government transparency.
House Bill 2523 would increase the penalties for violating the state’s record retention and open records laws, allowing for potential fines of up to $10,000. The measure also would create an office of transparency within the attorney general’s office, which would give the attorney general subpoena power to help enforce the law’s requirements.
State Rep. David Gregory, a St. Louis County Republican, co-sponsored the legislation. The House General Laws Committee heard testimony about the bill Monday, and it was expected to be voted out of committee. The proposal has received bi-partisan support from both House and Senate leadership.
“Hopefully we’ll get it to the floor and over to the Senate,” Gregory said Tuesday.
Coincidentally or not, the measure surfaced after Attorney General Josh Hawley’s investigation into whether the governor and his staff illegally destroyed public records with the use of an app called Confide.
The app allowed Greitens and his staff to exchange text messages that were erased immediately after they were read. As a result, texts involving significant government business might have automatically disappeared, in violation of the state’s record retention policies.
Hawley’s inquiry was hamstrung by a lack of subpoena power. It’s troubling that the attorney general’s office doesn’t have that power in such investigations.
“Right now, the attorney general investigating a government agency is at the will or the cooperation of that government agency,” Gregory said. “And that’s just not right.”
Public officials are also required to respond to requests in certain periods of time, limit fees charged for such requests, and define what records they must provide.
Under Gregory’s proposal, deliberately charging unreasonable fees for public records would become a Class B misdemeanor, with penalties of up to six months in jail.
Lawmakers should support Gregory’s bill to not only help bring the state up-to-date with today’s technological advances, but also to improve much-needed checks and balances in state government.
As Gregory said, government must be transparent to earn the trust of its people.
This story was originally published March 27, 2018 at 3:11 PM with the headline "Missouri Republicans taking needed steps to lift veil of government secrecy."